


The Hell-Raiser and the Demon

by Star_Going_Supernova



Series: Inky Eyes, Golden Heart [5]
Category: Bendy and the Ink Machine
Genre: Birthdays, Fluff, Friendship, Gen, Humor, Time skips between chapters, Will Update as Stories are Written, chapters in chronological order so I'll tell you guys which one is the new one, demon!Henry, demonic abominations, tater tot Henry and Joey, teenagers Henry and Joey, the misadventures of Henry and Joey
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-25
Updated: 2018-06-05
Packaged: 2019-03-20 21:40:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 7,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13726518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Star_Going_Supernova/pseuds/Star_Going_Supernova
Summary: Two best friends walk into a bar. Before an hour’s up, the bar is on fire, there’s a food fight going on in the adjacent bank, a hellish abomination breaks out of the clothing store across the street, and Joey Drew somehow misses Henry casting a spell.Just another day in the life of a hell-raiser and a demon.(Or; a place to put all my tumblr oneshots of pre-studio Henry and Joey's adventures.)This Update: Chapter 4: Canceled Plans and Pickle Slices





	1. Of Birthdays and Abominations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tater tots being adorable.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was originally posted on tumblr quite a while ago, but it has a new scene added to the end. This takes place only a few months after the end of The Demon Who Loved.

When Henry woke up on June thirteenth, he stumbled out of bed with wild hair and a demonic aura that wriggled more than normal. He made his way downstairs, blinking sleep out of his eyes.

Curiously, the kitchen lights were off. Usually, his mama was bustling around in there long before he so much as stirred. He was still getting used to a lot of human things, but sleeping in was something he’d taken to almost immediately. 

He stepped over the threshold, and just as his aura pinpointed his parents’ locations, they jumped out at him— his mama from behind the island counter and his papa from the pantry— and shouted, “Surprise!” 

Henry’s aura reared back in shock, and it took a moment of serious concentration to keep it from attacking them. 

Staring wide-eyed, he watched as his mama came and swept him up. “Look at you, my little boy growing up already!” 

What?

Papa joined them and ruffled Henry’s bedhead. “Happy birthday, son.” 

Oh! June thirteenth, yes, that was the day he’d chosen— admittedly at random— for his birthday.  He’d forgotten that humans greatly enjoyed celebrating the anniversaries of their birth. 

Demons didn’t care much about that. The only time your age served any importance was when you were abandoned by the caretakers after six cycles— er, years. Then you had to do everything for yourself. 

But it made sense, he supposed. Humans had such limited time, after all, not to mention how accident prone many of them were. So of course they would get excited when they managed to last another year. 

“How does it feel being eleven now?” Mama asked him.

Was he supposed to feel something change? Had he already screwed up acting like a human? 

“I don’t feel any different,” Henry whispered. “Am I s’posed to?”

Mama blew a messy kiss into his cheek. “Nah, it’s just somethin’ silly us adults always ask you youngsters.” 

Henry went a little bit boneless with relief in his mama’s arms and smushed his face into her shoulder. That was a close one. 

Papa laughed and turned the kitchen lights on. “C’mon, we have a special day planned, starting with your favorite breakfast.”

“Chocolate chip pancakes?” Henry asked, head shooting up. “Really?”

“With extra chocolate chips,” Mama said, booping their noses together. 

Humans were on to something with this whole birthday business.

• • • • • 

After eating far too many fluffy pancakes— seriously, it was a good thing demons could prevent themselves from getting stomach aches— his parents told Henry that his present was less of a physical thing, and more of a surprise trip.

This was more than okay to him, since as a demon, he could technically magick himself any random object that might have caught his fancy. Even though his parents were still young and healthy, since he had to think of his own lifetime in terms closer to forever, he’d much rather create as many good memories with them as possible before his time with his chosen family ended. 

But those weren’t the type of thoughts he wanted to have, much less on his birthday. 

Especially not since the surprise was spending the afternoon at the beach with Joey and his mom. 

“Happy birthday, Henry!” Joey cried, throwing his arms around Henry’s shoulders. 

Laughing, he returned his friend’s hug, careful not to use his demonic strength. “Thanks, Joey!”

“C’mon,” Joey said, pulling Henry towards the water. “Have you ever been to the beach before?”

“Uh,” Henry thought about the false memories he’d spent weeks constructing for his parents. “I don’t think so?”

Joey grinned. “I think you’ll like it. You can swim, right?” 

“Yeah.” 

Joey’s smile turned mischievous. There wasn’t much of a height difference between them, but he was taller than Henry by enough to pick him up, waddle into the shallows, and— despite Henry’s silly protests— drop him into the water, both boys laughing all the while. 

Hours passed as they messed around, going from playing in the shallows, to making sandcastles, to having lunch, back to their sandcastles, and now they were deeper than they’d ever gone before. 

There was a tall, red metal buoy not too much farther out, and Joey wanted to touch it— a special achievement according to him. Henry dutifully followed after him, and they grabbed onto  the edge, letting it tip and bob under their weight. 

Of course, that’s right when Henry realized that this was something not unlike a portal to one of the lower levels of hell, the ones that were inhabited by creatures instead of demons. 

From the depths, summoned by their presence, he sensed something rising up towards them. A flick of his aura told him it was an ocean chimera. He could feel its hunger. 

Henry sighed and turned to Joey with a grin. “Race you back?” 

Completely unaware of the eldritch horror beneath them, Joey lunged forward into the water, crying out, “You’re on!” 

Watching for a moment to make sure his friend didn’t look back, Henry held his breath and sunk into the water, using his aura to drag himself down. Despite the darkness as it got deeper, he could easily see the monster, including the moment it latched onto him as a potential food source.

Three heads— each bearing an open maw full of sharp teeth— protruded from a squid’s body, surrounded by writhing, poison-emitting tentacles that reached for him. 

Henry’s fangs extended with his horns, and the water around him became illuminated by the glowing of his veins. Making sure all three pairs of eyes were watching him, he snarled and revealed his power to the train-sized behemoth. 

Aura crackling beneath his skin, Henry stared the chimera down as it shrieked and twisted, futilely trying to escape its doom. The flesh around his eyes threatened to become corrupted, but he held his power steady, refusing to lose it before the beast’s soul was fully eradicated. 

Bubbles trickled out of his mouth, and he was sure Joey was close to the shore and would notice him missing soon, if he hadn’t already. He didn’t necessarily need to breathe— though his time as a human had gotten him used to it— but he wouldn’t be able to pass his absence off as an accident if he stayed down here much longer. 

Abominations like this always took longer and more power to completely destroy, but finally, the body burnt away into ash, despite the water surrounding it. The laws of nature were nothing to those with the power to defy them. 

Satisfied, Henry spun in the water and somehow managed to teleport on his first try to just a few feet behind Joey, right as his friend stumbled into the shallows.   
  
“I win!” he cried, jumping up and down, spraying water in every direction. 

After running his tongue over his human-flat teeth to make sure his fangs were completely gone, Henry grinned. “Yeah, you sure beat me.” His power thrummed through his body, and the part of him that was still inherently demonic knew he could destroy this entire beach and everyone on it with little more than a thought. 

Joey laughed and tackled him back into the water. They continued playing, as carefree as children their age oughta be, but it took another hour for the skin around Henry’s eyes to stop hurting. 

It’d be years yet before he would even begin seeing any side-effects from using that power, but sooner or later, he knew his half-demon, half-human form would eventually show visible signs of the aura that struck fear into even his own kind. 

Henry didn’t mind all that much. It was worth using it to protect others, especially Joey. A few months of friendship might not seem like that big a deal in the grand scheme of things, but to a demon who’d been taught growing up that there was no such thing as friends at all?

Those months meant the world. 

• • • • •

Later, all tuckered out from their fun in the water, Henry and Joey dozed on one of the beach towels their parents had brought along, the sun warming their backs as they sprawled on their stomachs. The soft murmur of the nearby adults only helped lull them closer to sleep. 

“Henry,” Joey whispered over the sound of the distant waves. 

Turning his head, Henry hummed in his throat. “Mmm?”

Looking back at him, eyes drowsy and half-lidded, Joey blinked slowly. “I want to give you your present.” He wiggled closer to one of the nearby bags, fishing around inside it until he pulled out a messily wrapped present, flat and rectangular with a smaller rectangle centered on top. “It’s not much,” Joey said as he returned to his spot beside Henry, “but I just knew I had to get it for you when I saw it.” 

Henry reverently took the gift, leaning up on his elbows to unwrap it. His eyes widened. 

It was a sketchbook, with an accompanying pack of pencils and an eraser. 

Sure that his eyes reflected the grateful wonder he felt, he turned to see Joey smiling at him. 

“You like it?” Joey asked, laughing when Henry nodded speechlessly. “You seem like the kinda person to like drawing.” 

Carefully, as though it would break apart with one wrong touch, Henry opened his very first sketchbook. 

_(It would be less than a year before a little demon named Bendy would first appear on its pages.)_


	2. A Tail of Terror

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Age means little to the cruelty of demons.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This takes place sometime after _The Demon that Wasn’t_ but before Henry’s twelfth birthday. Also, reminder that #363599 is Henry before he was named Aztrayos. There aren’t any other numbers in the story, so you don’t have to worry about remembering his. 
> 
> see end notes for warnings

Even demons could be too young to defend themselves. 

At just over three cycles old, #363599 was one of them. His aura was still developing, twisting and expanding to fill his small body, and with how closely his gradually growing power was being monitored by his caretaker, he didn’t stand a chance when they came for him. 

It was a game, to them. A tradition. A number of demons from one age group would harass the group younger than them, cause pain, deliver harsh blows, carve mutilations into the skin of those who couldn’t fight back. The caretakers seldom interfered, seeing it as a necessary trial for the children to go through.

The world was cruel, and it was best they understood that at as early of an age as possible. Nothing good could come from useless things like kindness or gentleness or caring. 

When they came that night, invading the shared space for the three-cycle-old demons, they remained silent and undetected right up until the first cry of pain. #363599 woke up to a shadow looming over him as the child across the aisle from him had one of her ears cut off. 

A few of them held torches, casting sharp, flickering shadows over their grinning faces. Claw-tipped hands yanked #363599 to the rocky ground and shoved him to his stomach, slicing into his shoulders to pin him there. 

Aura sluggish and mind panicked, #363599 tried to wiggle free, crying out. The demons surrounding him, each more than twice his size and weight, laughed louder than the screams echoing through the chamber. 

Before now, #363599 had wondered what it would sound like to stand above the chasm and listen to the torture they’d been told happened down there. If it was anything like this, he decided, he’d rather not ever get close enough to find out. 

The demon who slept to #363599’s right was shrieking at the top of his lungs as he was toppled to the ground beside him. His attacker pressed her foot down onto his stomach and grinned. “What should we do with these two?” she asked as she increased the weight on the loud child’s ribcage. 

“Cut that one’s tongue out to teach him to shut up,” one of the others said, flicking a knife through their fingers. 

The small crowd around them laughed, and #363599’s tail thrashed with nerves. A hand grabbed it tightly, eliciting a startled, high-pitched yelp from him. Words echoed around him in harsh tones, but they garbled together into something incomprehensible before he could even start to understand what was being said. A tight, blazing anger ignited in #363599’s chest, spreading like magma through his veins. 

He wanted to fight back, to make them afraid, to show them that he wasn’t weak. 

(Perhaps, in some world, he did— and in doing so, lost the person he could’ve become.)

But as a jagged blade pressed cold and sharp against the base of his tail, right where it connected to his body, #363599 only steeled himself, stubbornly clenching his teeth together. If there was one thing his caretaker had taught him, it was to choose your battles. This was one he couldn’t win, not at three cycles old, not without knowing how to fight, not against so many demons older and larger than him. 

All he could do was take away their satisfaction of hearing him scream. 

#363599 sensed the arm holding the blade tense, preparing to strike, and the last sound he would make that night in his attackers’ presences slipped out as a small, hurt whimper. 

Burning, biting pain sliced through him as the flesh of his tail split under the force of the knife, and his spine arched as the bones in the center cracked and splintered apart. As he sawed through, the demon roughly yanked on #363599’s tail, the bloody half that was still attached painfully ripping away, the muscles within snapping apart. 

It was one of the worst things he’d ever felt, being so young. Perhaps the one thing that #363599 considered worse would be the time his caretaker severely charred the bottoms of his feet and made him walk around like that for a week. 

#363599 trembled violently, feeling blood soak through his clothing and stream down the backs of his legs. The loud jumble of words seemed to rise around him, mingling with the screams of the tortured young, threats obvious even when he couldn’t understand their meaning. Flames from his tormentors’ torches seemed to grow brighter-closer-hotter, scorching the sides of his face.  

A new hand touched his shoulder and shook him, rocking his quivering form back and forth. His focus zeroed in on the touch— warm and soft, especially compared to the painful grip of the demons pinning him down— so different from what he was used to. 

No… not different. So very familiar.

Henry opened his eyes, blearily finding Joey staring back at him with a concerned frown. The screams faded from his memory as the crickets chirping beyond the flimsy material of their cozy tent flooded his senses. The soft glow of the lantern hanging above them replaced the glaring flames. The sharp pain radiating out from the base of his spine dulled. 

He was safe. He was home. He wasn’t three cycles old and defenseless. He was almost twelve years old, and he’d proven to himself time and again that he could fight other demons around his age and win. 

“Henry? Are you okay?” Joey asked, leaning closer. “You started shaking and crying and stuff. Were you having a nightmare?”

It took Henry a moment to answer, as he waited for his heart to stop pounding in his ears. “Yeah. It was just a bad dream, Joey.” He took a deep breath. “I’m fine now.” 

Joey nodded slowly. “If you say so.” He snuggled back down under his blankets before scooting closer to his friend, curling his arm beneath his head. “What was it about? Talking’s supposed to help, right?” 

The uneven scar where his tail should be didn’t show up on his human form, but the area where he knew it rested seemed to itch all the same. Henry shuddered. “Bunch’a bullies,” he whispered, hoping Joey wouldn’t press for details. He didn’t like lying, but he could never explain that he’d lost an appendage humans couldn’t have. 

He watched Joey’s face contort with anger. “Don’t worry,” he said fiercely, throwing his free arm over Henry. “I’ll protect you.” 

And even though Joey Drew— human, fragile, mortal— wouldn’t stand a chance against a demon that truly intended harm against either of them, Henry had never felt safer than he did right then, tucked in a tent in his backyard, buried beneath several blankets, with a child’s arm hugging him close to a wonderfully beating heart. 

“Yeah,” Henry whispered as they both started to drift back off to sleep, “I know you will.” 

(When his dream unfortunately picked up right where it’d left off, this time he was his current age and could feel the power he’d developed over the years bubbling in his chest. Before he could use it to break free of his captor’s claws, however, something knocked him off Henry’s back. 

Henry looked up right as Joey shook his fist at the demon, freshly scrapped knuckles and all, and shouted with all the fire and ferocity a twelve-year-old could have, “You leave him alone!”

Miracle of miracles, for the rest of the dream, they did.

“You’ll be happy to know,” Henry would tell Joey in the morning, “that you fought those bullies off me last night.” 

Beaming, Joey would laugh and say, “Well, of course I did! That’s what best friends do!”)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a heads up, there are semi-graphic depictions of what amounts to pointless torture. It’s not long and I don’t go too into detail, but it’s there. 
> 
> Hope you guys enjoyed! I know everyone can't get enough of protective!Joey, so here's a very innocent bean wanting to protect his best friend. :)


	3. Breaking and Entering

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Joey— and Henry, by association— isn’t the only one breaking into where he shouldn’t.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally written for and posted on tumblr as a birthday present for my bud snippyschnapps. 
> 
> This story as a whole will be where the adventures of pre-studio Henry and Joey end up. I’ll keep them in order as they happen, not as they’re written. The title is a suggestion I got a long time ago from lavadog. Thank you for the great name! 
> 
> They're probably around 16 years old here, give or take a few.

“Joey. Joey!” Henry hissed at his friend’s back. When he got no response, he climbed off his bicycle and tossed it to the ground beside Joey’s own to run after him. “What are you doing?”

With bright, excited eyes, Joey said, “I told you, we’re breaking into the clock tower. Didn’t you hear me?” 

“Oh, I heard you. I was just hoping I heard wrong.” 

Joey rolled his eyes and started climbing the fence in front of them. “C’mon, Henry, don’t be a party pooper.” He nearly tumbled off the top, and Henry’s aura spasmed and rushed to surround him in an invisible, intangible embrace until Joey regained his balance. 

Without waiting to see if Henry would follow him, Joey headed straight for the base of the tower. Screaming internally— because if Henry’s aura was to be believed, somewhere inside was a liminal space that was a bit beyond what humans thought of liminal spaces— Henry threw his hands into the air. He really didn’t need to deal with an eldritch horror reaching out of a literal tear in the fabric of the universe. 

Without even bothering to touch the fence, Henry teleported to the other side and took off after his friend. 

“Knew you’d come,” Joey said, and Henry could hear the gleeful smirk in his voice.

“Yeah, well, somebody’s gotta keep you safe. You just can’t be trusted on your own.” 

“Good thing I have you, then.” Flashing Henry a smile, Joey grabbed his wrist and tugged him around the corner of the building. 

Inwardly, Henry despaired. Regardless of his inclination to kindness and other such good personality traits, it was still highly disconcerting to know that he, the actual demon, was the objectively more responsible one. What did that say about the state of human teenagers, he wondered.

Without a moment of moral hesitation, Joey picked the lock on the outer door, and just like that, they were in. 

“You have absolutely no self-preservation skills,” Henry told him as they headed for the stairs. 

“Does that honestly surprise you?” 

Rolling his eyes, Henry said, “No, but I still have moments where I remember that it’s true and feel obligated to mention it.” 

Joey laughed giddily, but other than that, they remained quiet for the rest of the trip upwards. 

When they reached the top, Joey poked around a bit until he found the special support beam that was covered in the carved names of all the teenagers who had broken in here over the years. Henry watched him pull out a pocket knife and start scratching his own. 

Content to let Joey vandalize the clock tower in peace, Henry allowed his gaze to wander aimlessly around the dark room. There was the expected equipment, some tools, empty food wrappers— and _there_ was the liminal space. 

Henry wondered what humans would think if they knew that liminal spaces were far more physical than they imagined. This one even had an eldritch horror behind it, too. Oh, even better, it was starting to reach through to them. 

By an amazing stroke of luck, Joey finished his carving and tripped his way through the dark to Henry’s side. They’d never make it down to solid ground in time, which meant the only way out of this one was up. 

Spinning around, Henry pushed open the glass clock face and started climbing out.

“What are you _doing?_ ” Joey cried, sticking his head out after him. 

“Stargazing!” Henry called back down as he pulled himself onto a stable ledge. 

“Henry! That’s not— it was cloudy out when we got here!” 

Looking up confirmed that it was indeed overcast. The eldritch horror was about to breach the fabric of the universe, which meant it was time for desperate measures.

Flopping down onto his stomach, Henry stuck his upside-down head back into the open window. “I personally beg to differ. It’s perfectly clear, just— do you trust me?” He stuck his hand out, hoping Joey would take it.

Clear night sky in exchange for a bit of trust. 

Joey grabbed his hand, and in the space of the few seconds it took Henry to haul him up onto the ledge next to him, his aura worked with the boost of power it’d gained from Joey’s trust to get rid of the clouds. 

By the time the eldritch horror below them wiggled free, they were both nicely relaxed on the rooftop, the surface below them still warm from the sun. 

Henry pointed out his favorite stars and constellations as the monster raged in silence. Eventually, he glanced to his side and found Joey watching him.

“What?” 

“Nothing,” Joey said, smiling. “It’s just— you didn’t even want to come inside the clock tower to begin with, and yet— you’re the one who pulled me up onto the roof. It seems like if one thing were to be more dangerous than the other, this would be it.”

Henry wiggled until he could nudge his shoulder against Joey’s. “You’re not scared, are you?” 

Sounding a bit surprised, Joey answered, “No. Somehow I’m not.”

“Good,” Henry said grinning back at him. “Because I would never let anything happen to you.” 


	4. Canceled Plans and Pickle Slices

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Henry gets the birthday pick-me-up that he may or may not have wanted.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In celebration of my own birthday today, here’s another story about Henry’s birthday! Took some inspiration from a couple conversations about Henry having religious relatives with my friend, Lili. 
> 
> I imagined the boys to be at the tail end of their high school careers in this one.

As soon as Henry opened the front door, he received a face-full of brightly colored confetti. Blowing out a harsh breath to dislodge a piece from his left nostril, he opened his eyes—having closed them for protection—and gave the perpetrator a Look.

“Surprise!” Joey belatedly cried, throwing his arms out.

“And what’s the occasion this time?” Henry asked tiredly, the skin beneath his eyes sickly and dark.

Grabbing Henry’s wrist to forcibly yank him out of his house, Joey grinned at him and said, “Why, your birthday, of course! Don’t tell me you forgot.” Briefly leaning through the doorway, Joey called, “Mrs. Ross, I’m kidnapping your son!”

There was a faint, “Have fun, dear!” from deeper in the house just before Joey pulled the door closed and started down the front walk, Henry stumbling along behind him.

Huffing—and almost immediately choking on the snot stubbornly clinging to his throat—Henry told his friend, “I didn’t _forget_ , I just—it hasn’t really been at the forefront of my mind these past few days.”

“Oh, yeah, you’ve got some family of yours staying with you guys for a while. Grandparents, right?”

Henry nodded, trying not to look too miserable about it.

“The ones that always pinch our cheeks and cook that _awful_ meatloaf, or the super religious ones?”

With a violent quadruple-sneeze, Henry croaked, “The super religious ones.”

Stopping on the sidewalk to face him, Joey frowned. “And you sound really sick. Aren’t you always coming down with something when they visit?”

“Sure seems like it,” Henry said, his voice just a little too high pitched.

They stared at each other for a long moment, Joey with an almost suspicious look and Henry with a paler-than-usual face and very wide eyes.

Joey clapped his hands once, startling Henry, and shook his head. “What a weird coincidence. Anyway, I came to rescue you from their clutches and do something fun with you today!”

Henry frowned. “You canceled our plans just yesterday.”

“And those plans are still canceled,” Joey said with the type of grin that made most people accept his charm. Henry only frowned harder and crossed his arms over his chest, thoroughly unimpressed. “But that doesn’t mean we can’t make up some new ones on the spot! What’d ya say, birthday boy?”

At least Joey was putting some sort of effort into it, which was more than he could say for certain other members of his family. And besides, being out of the house—and more importantly, _away_ from the burning religious symbols his grandparents had brought—would do wonders for both his mood and his ‘illness.’

So, Henry mustered up some enthusiasm and said, “All right, Joey. How about some people-watching in the park?”

Joey visibly perked up and with a bounce in his step, went back to dragging Henry down the sidewalk towards town. “We can stop at the deli on the way and get some sandwiches for lunch—and we can sit in our tree and throw pickle slices at people!—my treat. And I’ll make some excellent commentary that you’ll write down on your napkin for a comic later, and then we can get some ice cream, and once we’re done with that, we can—”

Ducking his head to hide a small, pleased smile, Henry only vaguely listened as his best friend rambled on about the things they could do to celebrate Henry’s birthday. They wouldn’t have time to do them all, he knew, but it was still one of the best feelings in the world to know that someone had his back like this.

There’d probably be a cake waiting for him when he got back home, no matter how late it was—his ma was just that awesome, even when she did have a couple’a old folks to keep occupied—and Henry would invite Joey in to have a slice, despite having had ice cream earlier. His grandparents would leave in a few days, and then Henry would be able to feel comfortable in his own home again. And until then, he was sure Joey would be willing to keep him busy.

For years now, he could count on Joey to make each and every birthday he had a day to really remember, for better or worse.

_(Of course, the most memorable part of this particular one would be how it would take both boys far too long to realize that Henry was still in his pajamas. By then, they would already be settled in their tree, armed with pickle slices, and Henry’s headache and sore throat and watery eyes and runny nose would be gone, making him entirely unwilling to return to his home long enough to change._

_Joey would make a token protest, even promise to wait until Henry had returned to start their game, but Henry would simply respond by throwing his first pickle at an unsuspecting Joey._

_It would be his favorite birthday for years, right up until the one where they would spend the whole day cleverly evading the local police of a town in another state over a misunderstanding, an escaped tiger and a necklace of priceless jewels, and about fifty pounds of green glitter. But that’s neither here nor there.)_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ~~My Joey Friend was supposed to hang out with me today, but she had to cancel. Someone please save me from my grandparents, because even if they don’t make me sick, it takes… _patience_ to be around them for extended amounts of time.~~
> 
> Hope you guys enjoyed this silliness! Expect some angst soon, hopefully! :D


	5. Sleep is for the Weak

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> College is hard, even for demons.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Takes place during their college years. 
> 
> I yawned five times writing the first 3 paragraphs. Yawns are absolutely contagious. Also, there’s a reference to another story of mine in here, let’s see if anyone gets it. I took direct inspiration for this from my roommates and me.

Joey yawned, his jaw cracking from the stretch. Beside him, Henry caught his yawn and tried to shove Joey’s shoulder. He missed— of course he did, his eyes were half-closed— and nearly fell out of his chair. 

Watching him, Joey found himself yawning again.

“Stop it,” Henry whined, face-planting into his desk. A moment later, he tried to hold his breath against his own second yawn.

“I can’t help it,” Joey said. 

“Mmm,” Henry responded. 

Joey kicked him underneath their side-by-side desks. Henry startled upwards. 

“I’m awake!” he cried, blinking rapidly. “Right?”

Shrugging, Joey fiddled with his pencil. Fascinating concept, pencils. Practically magical. “What day is it?” he asked. 

Henry twisted around and squinted at the clock at the wall behind them. “Three,” he told him after a long moment where he might’ve fallen asleep for a second or two. 

Joey frowned and shook his head. “I don’t think that’s a day.” He watched Henry spin back to face his desk and contemplate this wisdom before cursing angrily. 

After staring down at the papers strewn across his workspace, Joey laughed, then frowned. Had he waited too long? “What are we even supposed to be doing?”

“We’re making the pictures go.”

“Animation!” Joey said brilliantly. “That’s right. Are we done yet?”

“I don’t think so,” Henry narrowed his glazed-over eyes at nothing. “And we still need to do the breakdown.”

Joey looked at him in horror. “I thought we both broke down already. We need to do it again?”

“Not like that, you nincompoop,” Henry said, rolling his eyes twice, though whether the second time was on purpose or not was debatable. He planted his hand on Joey’s face and shoved him out of his chair. 

Ha! Joke was on him! Joey was already completely numb and dead inside, so he didn’t even feel his back hitting the floor. 

“The breakdown’s about who did what,” Henry continued, sounding fully coherent to Joey for the first time in— how long had they been awake, anyway? “Y’know, stuff like _Henry wrote the dialogue for these scenes_ and _Joey drew the_ —” He broke off and started cackling.

Joey watched on in blank confusion as Henry lost his mind, falling out of his own chair, deliriously repeating over and over, “ _Joey Drew!_ ” 

“Henry.” 

His friend made a noise that, unbeknownst to Joey, sounded like a keyboard smash looked. 

“Henry.” 

The lightbulbs throughout the room whined as they grew brighter and brighter. 

Hissing, Joey rolled over onto his stomach. “It burns,” he whimpered. 

An unholy rattling, almost like demonic giggles, filled the room— or maybe that was just the sleep deprivation catching up to him. 

“Heeeenryyyy,” Joey whined. 

There was a sudden flurry of movement, though Joey didn’t look to see what was going on. He regretted this when Henry suddenly dropped down on top of his back, squeezing an _oof_ out of his lungs.

“Joey,” he said, still laughing, “Joey, we should make a deal so we can finish our project.”

“What’d ya mean, a deal?”

“Like, like a demon deal.”

Joey glanced over his shoulder. Henry, with a maniacal expression on his face, nodded at him. 

“Whatever works, honestly,” Joey said, closing his head and letting his eyes thunk back to the floor. Wait— other way around.

“Yes!” Henry cried, and Joey had the distinct impression based on how he shifted around on top of him that he’d just fist-pumped. “Okay, give me twelve hours of your life and I’ll finish it with A+ quality.” 

“How?” He wiggled until Henry raised up off him enough for Joey to roll over. Henry settled back down on top of his stomach. “And wait, won’t we need a demon for this?”

“Don’t be ridiculous. I’m a demon.” 

“Oh, right. Well, in that case, I better give you twenty-four hours, because I don’t think twelve are going to do you any good.”

Grinning with fangs, Henry stuck out his hand for Joey to shake. He did so without hesitation.

“Hang on,” Joey said. He squinted up at his friend. “Since when have you been a demon?” 

“I was born like this, duh.” Henry smoothly stood up, and snapped his fingers. Joey blinked and suddenly he was being cradled in Henry’s arms. 

“What happened, how did I get up here? Did you just use magick on me?”

“No. You fell asleep.” 

Joey hummed. That made sense, he was pretty sure he’d had a dream about Henry being a demon, too. Man, what a funny thought. 

Henry carefully set Joey down on his bed and tucked him in like their mothers used to do for them. “I can already feel it working,” Henry said, smiling. “Sleep well, okay?”

“Mhm. I’m not gonna remember this, am I.”

“No, probably not.” Henry tilted his head down at him.

“Because of magick?”

“Nah. You just haven’t slept in about a hundred and fifty hours.” 

Joey frowned. He tried to do the math in his head, but numbers were a no-go. “How many days is that?” 

“Six.”

“Ah. Well, have fun with the project.” 

If Henry said anything after that, Joey didn’t hear it. 

For the record, Joey did not, in fact, remember anything significant from that night. To Henry’s amusement, the only thing he managed to recall was Henry losing it over the Joey Drew joke he unintentionally made. And they most definitely got top marks on their project, _Bendy and Boris in Tower Tomfoolery_.


	6. Intruder

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thank goodness for fearless roommates.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In which Joey is me and Henry is my Smol Roommate. I can assure you, everything that happens in this story actually occurred in real life during the second to last week of this past semester. I was highly traumatized. 
> 
> Henry and Joey are still in college during this. And just to prepare you, when I mention the ceiling in this story, imagine a ceiling that’s about two and a half times taller than a normal human.

Movement in his peripheral vision where there should be no movement made Joey lift his head up. Seated on the top bunk of the cabin he and Henry were staying in for the weekend, Joey’s heart stuttered at the sight of a large, pale spider skittering up the wall opposite him.

“Henry,” he said, working frantically to unbury himself from his books and papers, “Henry, Henry, Henry.”

From directly below him, Henry asked, sounding very distracted, “What is it, Joey?”

“Spider, spi—there’s a spider.” He couldn’t quite keep the panic out of his answer.

He was gratified to hear immediate movement from the lower bunk. Some people laughed at how terrified of certain bugs—especially spiders—Joey was, but to his relief, his childhood best friend wasn’t one of them. In fact, ever since he could remember, Henry had been willing to kill or remove any offending creature as soon as Joey brought it to his attention.

“Where is it?” Henry asked, emerging from his little cave even as Joey hopped down from the top bunk.

Joey pointed, and they both watched in silence as it hurried the rest of the way up the wall and came to a stop on the ceiling. It was facing the beds, and if they didn’t kill the thing, Joey knew he’d be getting no sleep tonight.

“What do we do?” Joey asked, even as he sidled sideways to his desk, keeping the spider in sight. He briefly turned his back to find his flyswatter and flashlight, arming himself with both before rejoining Henry, who was staring up with a look of concentration on his face.

The spider twitched, and Joey released a very unmanly squeak, all but cowering behind his shorter friend.

“Henry,” he whined.

“I have an idea,” Henry told him. He abandoned Joey to cross to his own desk. Joey stared upwards, unblinking. The spider didn’t move.

“All right,” Henry said, returning. “Can you shine your light on it?”

Joey looked down to see a rubber-band stretched over his forefinger and around his thumb, like a gun. Momentarily forgetting his panic, Joey glanced incredulously at Henry and then back to the rubber-band.

“Seriously?”

Henry grinned at his skeptical look. “Have a little faith, Joey.” He lifted his hand to aim.

“Wait, wait!” Joey scrambled to drag one of the cabin’s sturdiest chairs over, positioning it just off to the side and a little bit back from where Henry stood. Brandishing his flyswatter in his left hand, he climbed on and held the flashlight above his head. It shone like a spotlight on their little intruder.

Receiving a nod to continue, Henry raised his hand again. Joey held his breath.

With a slight _thwip_ , the rubber-band sailed through the air and smacked the spider. Joey yelped as it fell, almost in slow motion, to land on the small stack of drawers right beneath it.

Staring intensely at where the spider had fallen, Henry shook his open hand at Joey, saying, “Gimme the flyswatter.”

Joey passed it to him, dancing in place on the chair. “Do you see it? Did you get it?” he asked, keeping the light focused on the miscellaneous objects littering the top of the drawers.

“Hang on.” Henry leaned this way and that, flyswatter at the ready. “Okay, I see it. It’s—” he sent Joey an amused look— “on the loaf of bread.”

“Is it dead?”

“It’s all curled up, but I don’t think it’s dead yet,” Henry said, and without hesitation, he raised the flyswatter and smacked the bread, over and over.

Taken by surprise, Joey screeched in alarm, hopping up and down on the chair. “Get it, get it, get it!” he cried.

Wordlessly screaming back, perhaps caught up in the moment, Henry froze. His arm was raised, ready to strike.

There was a short pause before he said, “I think I lost it.”

“You hit it, I saw you hit it!” Joey said, searching the floor with his flashlight, as though the missing spider might be coming for him.

“Yeah, but I can’t find it now.” After a moment of deliberation, Henry stretched forward and snagged a corner of the plastic wrapped around the mostly depleted loaf of bread. He tried to twist it around, poking at it with the flyswatter, but Joey stopped him.

“Here,” he said, climbing off his chair to scoot it back, clearing the middle of the room, “put it down, and if it tries to run, we’ll be able to see it no matter what.” Returning to his perch, he crouched down, watching carefully as Henry moved the loaf with all the delicacy as if it was a bomb.

Together, they examined the packaging from a safe distance, Joey wielding the light from his chair, and Henry using the flyswatter to nudge it this way and that.

Joey spared a thought for what they must look like, the two of them so intensely examining a loaf of bread without actually touching it. Joey was dressed in nothing but a large, short-sleeved shirt and his underwear, whereas Henry still wore the shirt he’d had on all day and a pair of pajama shorts that had been specially made and gifted to him a year ago, bearing Bendy in various poses.

Good thing they had the cabin to themselves.

Henry passed the flyswatter to Joey and stood. “I’m gonna look around here,” he said, gesturing at the drawers. “See if it fell behind it or something.”

Completely serious, Joey nodded and told him, “I’ll keep an eye on the bread.”

Armed once again, Joey felt confident enough to slide off his chair and push it aside, scooting closer to the offending loaf. Turning it this way and that, he could find no sign of the spider.

“I don’t get it,” he said, using the flyswatter like a spatula to flip the package like a pancake. “It has to be dead, after being hit by a rubber-band, falling off the ceiling, and being smacked a couple times by you. So where the heck is it?”

“It’s definitely not over here,” Henry said, sounding thoroughly confused. He’d moved everything else on the stack of drawers, even going so far as to pull it out from the wall a little to check all the way around it.

“Henry.” Joey waited until his friend made eye contact with him before he continued, “I know it’s dead—it can’t not be—but I want its corpse.”

“Me too, honestly,” Henry said as he knelt down to look beneath the drawers. “It’s a matter of pride at this point.”

“Proof,” Joey whispered to himself. “I demand proof in the form of its corpse.” Giving the bread a final poke, he asked, “You wanna switch?”

Nodding, Henry rose and accepted the flashlight, though he waved away the flyswatter.

Joey searched all the same places that Henry had, and came up with the same results. “It’s like it just vanished or something,” he said, utterly bewildered. Stepping away from the drawers, he looked down at the rug he was standing on, made of every color imaginable it seemed.

Crouching, Joey squinted as he slowly dragged his gaze along each line of color.

“I found it!” he cried, startling Henry so badly, his friend nearly fell over. It was all crumpled up on one of the tan patches, the paleness of it making it blend in absurdly well. Even though it was probably most definitely dead, he reared back and smacked it three times with the flyswatter.

This time, Henry really did fall over, though this time from laughter.

“It was there this whole time?” he wheezed. “And we’ve been over here, circling a loaf of bread like a pair of maniacs, poking it with a flyswatter!”

Sitting down, Joey laughed with him. “I was thinking that, too! Can you imagine if someone had walked in on us?”

Henry wheezed harder.

It took quite a while for them to calm down, and they only had themselves to blame for that. Between looking at each other and setting off another round of giggles, Joey smacking the dead spider again several times for good measure, and Henry occasionally poking the bread—perhaps, too, the late hour had something to do with it, as sleep deprivation can make a person quite loopy—they finally petered off into tired chuckles, curled up on their sides and clutching their stomachs.

“I don’t think you were even scared towards the end,” Henry eventually said.

“I guess I wasn’t. It was just too ridiculous of a situation to be scared. Besides! You shot that thing down with a rubber-band!”

“Aw, it was nothing.”

“What do you mean, it was nothing? It was so cool! I was completely convinced we’d have to wait it out, and you just came walkin’ over, all casual and stuff!” If Joey wasn’t so tired, he’d be bouncing around the room, going on about how his awesome friend had just shot a target the size of a nickel with a rubber-band. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say it was magic.”

Henry snorted. “Oh, please. As if I’d need magick to shoot down a spider.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The only thing that didn’t happen in this that did in real life is that Floofy Roommate _did_ walk in on us after everything happened to find us carefully nudging the corpse onto a tissue. The discarded chair and loaf of bread where still there, and she just kind of took it all in, shook her head, and said, “I don’t think I wanna know.” 
> 
> Smol Roommate and I looked at each other and said, “You probably don’t.” 
> 
> Anyway, this story happened because I was talking with Lili about bugs, offhandedly mentioned that the incident would make a funny little story, and here we are! Let me know what you thought!


End file.
